There are always new things to learn. Some lessons are so powerful and stick in your mind and you put them to work. Others such as Total Quality Management  come and go. They don’t tend to be useful unless the context in which you go through this is clearly explained. You can then prepare yourself to learn from them and relate to that context. For example, in the early 90’s TQM was pretty hot in higher ed circles. The institution where I worked at that time asked the staff members from our technology support organization to devote 4 full days to TQM training. Except, no one bothered to tell us ahead of time why we are doing this.

During the introductory remarks by the guy who was going to train us it became clear that the senior administration is making us go through this because our organization was in trouble and the staff had no idea how bad things were. Long story short, I was pretty upset that the context was not explained and was not shy about expressing it (in a cvivil way, of course!). Frankly, many saw me in a completely different light during the TQM training and recommended to the next administration that I will be good in a leadership position! So, I owe TQM for paving the way for me to take on leadership positions.

Wellesley’s HR has a strong leadership development program which I participate in. Its goal is to help senior managers develop leadership skills through exchange of ideas amongst ourselves as well as by listening to experts. We learned about Open Space Technology (OST) last week, which was very interesting on several counts. According to the website “Open Space (Technology) is a simple way to run productive meetings, for five to 2000+ people, and a powerful approach to leadership in any kind of organization, in everyday practice and turbulent change.” 

This is a subject that is close to my heart. One of the most often heard complaints amongst senior colleagues both here at Wellesley and elsewhere in higher ed is how meetings are occupying so much of their time that the real work gets done only after regular work hours at home. I am very conscious of meetings in terms of efficiency and try to do my best to have productive meetings.

The four principles of OST are:

• Whoever comes is the right people
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
• When it starts is the right time
• When it’s over it’s over.

Of course, application of these depends on the types of meetings, whether they are your run of the mill regular meetings with others at the College or idea generation meetings. These can be interpreted in myriad of ways, but I project these onto some of what we are trying to do to achieve efficiency in our own meetings.

Invite the Right People to meetings

Often, the meeting invitation is driven by several extraneous factors rather than being strategic. We tend to invite some people to certain meetings for the fear of making them feel left out. Or that when key decisions need to be made, we include those who are not decision makers. I can go on with a long list, but everyone understands what I mean. By not having the right composition, there is a lot of waste and it results in significant cost to the institution. Whereas initially some of the staff may feel left out, explaining to them why they were not included will go a long way and over a period of time, everyone gets adjusted to the idea. One other thing we have found effective is to share meeting minutes widely. Sometimes those who were not invited to the meetings are thankful that the proceedings were shared and some are happy that they didn’t have to waste their time by going to the meeting!

Set an agenda

Agendas are important, without which meetings will become social gatherings. It is also important to set a realistic agenda that fits within the meeting time. Making sure that assigning appropriate time for each topic in the agenda is an additional step one can potentially take, but I found this to be a futile exercise. What is more important is someone identified to run the meeting “cracks the whip” and keeps the focus and politely brings the discussions back to where it needs to be.

Meeting duration and time spent in Meetings

I have failed miserably in trying to maintain my own calendar. I have an excellent assistant who manages my calendar. The general rule for me are – I need at least 2 hours a day meeting free. This works for me for the most part. Though I work from home one day a week, I participate in meetings remotely or through conference calls, but I try to keep most of that day for work. I do have an open door policy, so my staff seek me out when I am not in meetings, but that’s ok. It is not that we are surgical about all meetings. We do chat here and there and we do have an offsite meeting which is less about business as usual. These are important when you have to work together with a large group of senior managers.

My weekly meetings with my boss are typically 20 minutes long. Very quick updates on the most significant things and anything requiring more details are done via emails.

The law of two feet

OST promotes the concept of the law of two feet. “If you find yourself in a situation where you are neither learning or contributing, move somewhere where you can. This is a law like the Law of Gravity. You can choose to notice it or not, but it’s safer just to notice it.” This was such a powerful idea that resonated with me very well. I have told my senior managers that they should feel free to apply this during our direct reports meeting. I was joking that if they all take it seriously, there may be a section of the meeting when I am the only one left, talking to myself!

It is also possible for us to structure the meetings in such a way that a few can excuse themselves because the agenda items are not directly relevant and falls in this category – that they can move “somewhere” where they can be more productive. I would much prefer to have them do this than sitting bored in the meeting or even worse, typing away on their laptops or phones.

In all honesty, these are our collective goals and I am proud to say that we follow them a fair amount. However, we do fail from time to time, but reset and try to get us back to some of these core principles that helps us to be more productive & more efficient.

Unlike TQM, I really appreciated the opportunity to learn about OST from which I have taken one or two key things that I intend to put to use!